Heart 2 Heart

This is the second part of my Mum's story.  It shows how through another set of God-incidences, two men (Reg Lloyd, my Grandad and Beck Onishi, my Dad’s business associate) who would once have been mortal enemies could become men of mutual and honourable respect. Reg Lloyd (left) | Mum, Dad, me & my brother (right) Photos taken by Beck Onishi This is mainly my story of experiences during and after World War 2, so I will now go back to about 1942 and the entry of Britain into the war against Japan.  My father was in his 31st year, hardly a young recruit and certainly no hero.  Nevertheless he was called up and sent off to Chittagong, India, to be prepared for fighting in the swamps and jungles of Burma as part of the 14th Army.  As a baby at this time, I was obviously oblivious to all this and my earliest memory is of my father turning up at our Kingston home probably in about 1943/4.   He had previously been reported to my mother as missing in action but she was convinced he

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been reflecting on the stories we each carry.  Stories of people, places and events; such as VE Day, 400 years of the Pilgrims leaving Plymouth, VJ Day and significant birthdays for family members.  Stories form part of our identity and inheritance, so I’ve invited my Mum to guest blog by sharing a couple of her stories. Here is part one of her story - one that shows how people, places and events can become inexplicably interweaved.  We often dismiss these coincidences but sometimes they are more than coincidences, they are God-incidences.  We may not always know the significance of them, but I know that, despite the doubt concerning the authenticity of the windows, Mum was comforted by knowing that somehow God was connected to her life personally through these enigmatic signs.   Akureyri Church (left & main) | Coventry Cathedral & Mum (right) I was born on the 14th November 1940 in Oxford.  Although my mother, father and older brother were li